UN­AC­CEPT­ABLE

THE Supreme Court has quite jus­ti­fi­ably ex­pressed its in­dig­na­tion over the death of 15,000 peo­ple in road ac­ci­dents within a pe­riod of five years due to neg­li­gence of pot­holes by con­cerned au­thor­i­ties. The grav­ity of the sit­u­a­tion can be gauged from the fact that these many peo­ple have not died in any war or be­cause of ter­ror­ism. They are the vic­tims of the ne­glect of main­te­nance of roads by con­cerned au­thor­i­ties. The apex court has quite jus­ti­fi­ably blamed the Na­tional High­way Au­thor­ity of In­dia (NHAI), mu­nic­i­pal bod­ies and state road de­part­ments. The death of so many peo­ple in road ac­ci­dents due to pot­holes should be a mat­ter of grave con­cern. The fig­ure given out to the Supreme Court may not pro­ject the true pic­ture about the enor­mity of the prob­lem which these au­thor­i­ties have not ad­e­quately as­sessed and have not taken care of. While rash driv­ing, drunken driv­ing, over­load­ing may be some of the rea­sons for road ac­ci­dents on a large scale, pot­holes be­come death­traps for un­wary drivers of ve­hi­cles. This is to­tally un­ac­cept­able.